people

Little girl goes to My Little Pony Convention and…

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It’s not just about the original story; it’s also about the way people responded to that story.

When my son first started going to Pokemon league, I always made sure to sit in the back of the room. The game store where it was held had a cafe attached (a pretty good one) where I could have relaxed with a beer and some fries, but I always hung at the very back and watched.

The main reason was that, for the first few weeks, an older guy decided to teach him out to play the game. The guy gave me the skeevies for a lot of reasons, not least that his shirts were always filthy in back between the shoulder blades, as though he was sleeping outside (now that sex offenders have to register and inform their neighbors of their criminal history, many have become homeless).

Did I know the guy was a pedophile? Nope, but there was no way I was going to take the chance, and I wasn’t going to leave my son’s safety in the hands of the store/event staff.

Now, this is different from a convention-type event. Pokemon League took place in a room about the size of the cafe I’m sitting in right now. In a convention, people range farther, it’s a bigger space, and there’s way more to see. In that situation, the organizers absolutely have to step up.

If the event is going to have little kids in attendance, pron and other sexual materials should be forbidden. If the whole point is pron and sexual material, the organizers should not allow anyone under 18 to attend.

More importantly, if the people attending have zero faith in the organizers’ ability to keep their attendees safe (especially 11yo girls) that’s a huge, huge problem.

Randomness for 4/8

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1) What is NeoRealism? Video. Extraordinarily interesting contrast between neorealist and Hollywood movie techniques. h/t @RodneyRamsey

2) The Uncomfortable, a collection of deliberately uncomfortable everyday objects.

3) Sony gets Blender-made animated short pulled from YouTube even though they have no copyright claim to it. You can still watch it on Vimeo, though.

4) Vatican to digitize 41 million pages of ancient manuscripts. Of course, the manuscript pages themselves will outlast whatever file type the Vatican chooses to put them in.

5) Workouts inspired by your favorite fandoms. Heh.

6) What if the moon was a disco ball? Video. A question we’ve all asked at one point or another.

7) The Love Me Letters, Open Letters to Random People.

Randomness for 3/25

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1) The inevitable D&D-themed yoga. So cool, Brewster.

2) True Detective as Hardy Boy’s style covers.

3) I have never been as deeply moved by anything as this lady is about curtains. True salesmanship. Video.

4) The High Five Camera. Video.

5) Which pet should I get? A Flowchart.

6) Visual charts showing how people around the world communicate. Very interesting and completely authentic, I’m sure.

7) The ten words in English with the most meanings. Another chart.

Let’s face it: these links won’t be getting their own blog posts

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Like most people, I follow a link or check out an article and think “I should share that with folks!” Twitter’s good if you have nothing in particular to say about it (or just want to add something snarky), but some stuff deserves to be talked about. Well, I’ve gotten in the habit of leaving browser tabs open that I want to get to later, then leaving them sit for way too long. Blogging! Who has the time!

So, instead of just giving up and closing those tabs, I’m going to list them here with a little note about why I thought they were worth reading about:

To Stop Procrastinating, Look to Science of Mood Repair. Note: this article did not get me to write an extensive response to it.

Amazon-owned Audible lowers royalty rates on self-published audiobooks Is this the first sign of the long-expected rise in Amazon’s sales commissions?

Ian Rankin: ‘It took 14 years for my writing to pay’ Bestselling UK writer talks about how long it took him to find success. Ten books! Funny, after this Kickstarter is done, I’ll have ten books out, too…

From bestseller to bust: is this the end of an author’s life? A lament on the fact that nothing is guaranteed for writers, especially sales. No mention is made of the economic collapse, of course.

Making Compelling Arguments through the Power of Story Author (and professional marketer) Kameron Hurley offers great advice on writing blog posts people will want to share.

I thought this was interesting: So What Do You Do Brendan Deneen, Executive Editor of Macmillan Entertainment? Short version: he hires writers to write work-for-hire novels in company properties, which he then sells to Hollywood.

The Internet is Fucked (but we can fix it) An argument to declare the internet a public utility, create real competition, and fix the terrible internet-access situation in this country. I’m sold.

Is Genre Fiction Creating a Market for Lemons? Cheap ebooks as used cars.

Is the “Seattle Freeze” a Real Thing? Science says yes! For those who don’t know, the Seattle Freeze is a sort of chilly demeanor that makes it difficult for new arrivals to make friends.

Randomness for 3/6

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1) First sentences of famous novels, diagrammed.

2) Guy creates Kickstarter to interview loving couples to find out what makes relationships last. His results.

3) Pedestrian rollercoaster not as cool as it looks. Why couldn’t they just make the stairs twist so you could go up the loop?

4) Medieval Pet Names.

5) Ursula Vernon on becoming tired of reading fantasy. I’m having similar feelings.

6) Star Trek Into Darkness: What Came Next. lol

7) In 2005, a fifth-grader wrote a letter to her 20-year-old self.

Wrecking the idea that popular art is superior to unpopular art

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There was a great piece on Morning Edition yesterday about art that becomes popular versus art that doesn’t. Is there some quality that makes some art successful and preserved forever or is it all just random chance?

Obviously, the big problem with a question like that is that you can look at only one timeline; there’s no way to look at an alternate world where the Potter books never took off (or they did, inevitably).

For those who haven’t clicked the link (you can listen to the short news piece or you can read a transcript of it) a Princeton professor decided to create a number of alternate virtual worlds to test the hypothesis that popular art becomes popular because of its inherent qualities rather than random chance. He created a database of music by unknown, unsigned bands and invited thousands of teenagers to listen and download their songs for free.

Those teenagers were randomly sorted into nine different “worlds.” In one control group, the teens did not get the chance to see which songs other teens selected. In the other eight, they did.

Try not to be wildly surprised, but different songs became popular in different virtual worlds. A song that was number 1 in one setting was 40th (out of 48) in another. Further experimentation established that there was a minimum level of quality below which popularity was not possible, but after that there was no predicting what would be successful and what would not. Read it yourself if you’re curious.

My problem with this is not the assertion that popularity does not come solely from quality, and that a piece of art that is well-known is not inherently better than something obscure. It’s always been perfectly obvious to me that wonderful and excellent books could/should have been popular but weren’t (I’m not talking about me, now).

My objection here is that the good professor chalks popularity up to “chance.” In fact, he (or at least the reporter covering his work) hits the idea of chance very hard. But that’s a black box.

I’ve talked about this sort of thing before, but there are a lot of effects that people attribute to chance simply because they are not well understood. What I would like to see is an experiment that examines the way those songs became popular in each virtual world. Was it an early surge? Was there an early surge that faced a backlash, with the more popular work getting a secondary surge? I’d like to know, and by that I mean that I’d really really like to know.

#SFWApro

National Eating Disorders Awareness Week:

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Per Postsecret:

postsecret regarding anorexia

This week, Postsecret has a theme because it’s National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. For women 15-24, eating disorders are the leading cause of death, by a long shot.

If you have or know someone with an eating disorder, please seek help or talk to a doctor.

Randomness for 2/21

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1) Classic movies painted as Ottoman miniatures.

2) The six male characters women never get to see in movies. so many story ideas here.

3) Credit card company’s new terms and conditions allow them to show up at your home or workplace, or disguise their identity when they call.

4) Facial expressions of Olympic figure skaters. G forces take quite a toll.

5) Using two colors, this map shows where 50% of the GDP of the USA comes from.

6) A comic about economics and trade agreements. TW: mixed in with a lot of good information is some shitty treatment of Tea Partiers.

7) Ten Travel Tips for Japanese People Visiting the USA.

The Dunning-Kruger-Howey Effect

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As a followup to the post I put together linking critical analyses of Hugh Howey’s Author Earnings report, I have something brief to say: It’s clear that Howey’s data isn’t all that great, which he knows. It’s also clear that the conclusions he’s jumping to–even before he gets to analyzing B&N or whatever he’s doing next–are not supported by the data.

That’s too bad because this could have been the data I’m looking for. The book I published before last was self-published, and this year I expect to self-publish five more times. As I consider small press offers to put out the books, it would be really helpful to have numbers to look out.

Sadly, despite Mr. Howey’s bold conclusions, I don’t. Yeah okay the guy keeps talking about the limits of the data he’s collected, but he also talks as though the data has proved him right. Actually, he’s claiming to be proved righter than ever.

As the links in that previous post demonstrate, that’s not the case. It’s pretty clear that, once Howey got the data, he didn’t really know how best to use it, nor did he know what was absolutely not allowed. The enthusiasm and certitude behind his conclusions are textbook Dunning-Kruger Effect.

We’re all prone to confirmation bias. How many people dismissed what he said without really looking at it? How many people really looked at the report, recognized the flaws, then decided to believe it all anyway? It’s easy to believe flattery. It’s easy to stand in the mirror in just the right way to catch yourself at a good angle. We exert that sort of unconscious control all the time; that’s why we need smart knowledgeable people who know the rules. Howey may know how to write a bestseller but when it comes to data analysis he’s just another thriller writer. Also, it seems that his “Data Guy” is really just “Coder Guy.”

It’s too bad. I could have used expert advice. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have any to offer and he doesn’t even know it.

The Mallory Ortberg Appreciation Society

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Anyone who’s been reading my Randomness posts will recognize the name in the subject header: She’s one of the writers and editors of The Toast, and she’s hilarious. For example:

Your Constant Vigilance Is The Only Thing Keeping The Shape At Your Window From Coming Inside

It’s A Bunch of Years After The War And Everything Is Different


Things That Actually Happened In The Movie Vampire Academy, A Movie That Is About An Academy For Vampires

“Are You There God? It’s Me, MacGyver.”

A Gender-Flipped Version of “The Bodyguard” Starring Kanye West and Brienne From Game of Thrones

There Is A Book Inside Of You (I’m so, so sorry.)

She’s funny, and I’m not wildly envious of her ability. Just, you know, somewhat envious.

Also, I made my son read “After the war…” because he’s big on the dystopias and after he finished he turned to me and said “That’s every book I’ve ever read.” I didn’t tell him that was because he won’t read mine.